


After

by lilylights



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, How Do I Tag, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 04:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11547888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilylights/pseuds/lilylights
Summary: Everyone was different after the War. Some changes were big and some were small, but sometimes that small ones were the most telling.





	After

**Author's Note:**

> This is a reflection on how the Second Wizarding War might have effected some of the characters from the books. Might do more characters, but I've not had specific ideas for others. 
> 
> First fic thing posted here (though this kinda feels more like meta than fic).
> 
> Themes of PTSD, mourning, and trauma from war. I rated it G since there is not anything explicit, but if i should bump it up because of mature themes or whatever please tell me. Also i don't know how I should tag this.

Ginny Weasley never wears hard soled shoes.

 

Even years later, when there were children to run after and a life on a broomstick had turned into a quill and pad of parchment in the press box, she always wore shoes that don’t make a noise when she walks.

 

Shoes made for sneaking and hiding in unwelcome places; in silent, echoing corridors. 

 

As a graduation gift, Charlie got her a pair of dragonhide boots with thick soles. She had wanted a good pair for years, hoped to one day afford a pair. She wore them for a week and they clacked against the floor with every step she took. She wore them for a week until Ron found her in the corner of a closet, unable to breathe and the laces tangled in her fingers. Her hands were shaking too much to untie the knots.

 

She kept whispering “They’ll hear me, they can’t catch me.” She didn’t start to breathe until he managed to tug the boots free of her feet.

 

She laughed it off later, but for Christmas she received a very nice pair of muggle canvas sneakers with soft rubber soles. She smiled at Charlie across the room, and he nodded in understanding.

 

She doesn’t stay silent in life, she never has. She grew up with six brothers and learned to hold her own in the small home they shared. She speaks loudly in quiet places and doesn’t hesitate to shoot a jinx at those who deserve it. She laughed without caring who hears and when she yells she makes sure that everyone knows why. She has never been a quiet person and  _ that year _ didn’t change that. 

 

But she still wears soft soled shoes. She still steps lightly on worn stone floors and loose cobblestones.

 

Because you never know when someone may be around the corner with a curse on their tongue.

 

She doesn’t ever explain her change in choice of footwear, and after everything that happened, people know not to ask questions about the small stuff.

 

After all, she was one of the lucky ones after  _ that year. _

 

She was alive.

 

. . . . .

 

Parvati Patil doesn’t drink tea anymore.

 

She used to drink a cup with breakfast in the Great Hall. The House Elves’ earl gray was something she looked forwards to every morning. Starting in third year she spent one afternoon a week drinking tea in the Divination classroom with Trelawney and Lavender, and every time the professor would take their cups and weave grand stories of future love and happiness. 

 

Lavender’s eyes would light up as she pictured the bright future the woman pulled out of the tea leaves.

 

But Lavender didn’t have a future to look forwards to it turned out.

 

During  _ that year _ , she would still have her cup of tea every morning. At first in the Great Hall as she did her best not to catch the eyes of the Death Eaters at the high table. Sometimes when she was feeling hopeless, Lavender would take her tea cup afterwards and spin her tales of future freedom and peace. 

 

Later in the Room of Requirement, they couldn’t get the Earl Gray the House Elves’ made for breakfast. The tea Aberforth sent was more bitter, and there was not always honey or milk to put in it, but she still drank her cup every morning, and Lavender still would talk about the future she dreamed up in the sad dregs left behind. Still so sure that they promised a future to look forwards to.

 

The day after the Battle, the day after Lavender died, her mother put a cup of tea next to her untouched plate of toast. Parvati saw the tea leaves dancing through the hot liquid, not yet fallen to the bottom. She knocked the cup over, refusing to allow the tea leaves to settle. Refusing to allow them to form the shapes that once promised her friend a future she would never have. 

 

She starts drinking coffee a week later, telling her parents she just took a liking to it.

 

And if she never serves loose leaf tea in her house, if she politely declines when a cuppa is offered, well, you never know what you’ll see. And she knows the lies those leaves can tell.

 

They said that peace would mean happiness. They said Lavender would be there to see the future they fought for. They lied. 

 

She doesn’t ever explain her sudden distaste for the drink, and after everything that happened, people know not to ask questions about the small stuff.

 

After all, she was one of the lucky ones after  _ that year. _

 

She was alive.

 

. . . . .

 

Dennis Creevey looked through albums of photos every night.

 

He had never been interested in photography  _ before _ . That had all been Colin. He humored his brother, but even when Colin started bringing home photos that moved Dennis never got too excited. After all, the square television in their little living room showed moving pictures too, and Dennis thought that the Animaniacs were way more interesting than the odd boy with the glasses that seemed to be the subject of many of Colin’s pictures.

 

He got so used to seeing his brother with a camera in hand that he hardly noticed when the photos began to change. How blurry photos of Potter holding his broom in the entrance hall after practice became clear shots of The-Boy-Who-Lived standing at the front of Dumbledore's Army, gesturing in a way that highlighted the scars on the back of his hand. How pictures of the Weasley twins pranking Slytherins with joke sweets became the the two mixing bowls of murtlap essence for those who run afoul of the High Inquisitor.

 

No one noticed that Colin never stopped recording the world around him, until he wasn’t in the world to take the photos anymore. The last photo on the camera someone found in the DA’s headquarters a few days after the battle was one of Harry Potter emerging from the tunnel to Hogsmeade. Later Dennis asks why Colin, who was never without his camera, left it by his bedroll before sneaking out to fight. Why he would leave it behind when he never lived a day without it. Dennis already knows why but refuses to consider that Colin may have not expected to live without it for very long.

 

When he goes home  _ after _ , he finds out that Colin had sent every photo he took home to their father, asking him to keep them safe. There are boxes of them in Colin’s room, hundreds of photos stacked up from a shot of Professor Sprout in their living room when she came to deliver a strange letter with emerald ink, to a photo of Hannah Abbott braiding her hair while sitting in her hammock in the Room of Requirement, mere days before the battle.

 

That summer Dennis goes through every single picture and places it carefully in scrapbooks. It takes 7 months and 84 scrapbooks to get them all in their proper place. Even once he finishes he spends hours every day looking through them, trying to see the world as his brother did, trying to understand why Colin found so many things worth recording. As time goes on he returns to daily life, gets a job restoring documents and artifacts damaged during the occupation of the Ministry. But he still spends an hour every day going through the old photos.

 

He never explains why there is always a different leather-bound scrapbook in his bag, and after everything that happened, people know not to ask questions about the small stuff.

 

After all, he was one of the lucky ones after  _ that year. _

 

He was alive.

 

 


End file.
